Some thoughts, ramblings, and ideas from a mountain boy who would change his world for the better.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

A Bard on the Mountain

Today
I decided to let the fates take me where they wished. My original plans had to be changed and I
found myself out in the world on a very nice day without a plan. I therefor started driving, thinking and
creating. Remember that before anything
is created in the world it must first be created in the mind so that is where I
went. Before long I found myself on top
of Roan Mountain, and I mean the very top.

While
driving up the mountain I started thinking about my friends and my family. Now when I say "family" I am not
referring to those people in the world that happen to share the same gene pool
with me but rather those people who know the real me and with whom I can be
completely open and honest about anything.
These are the people who speak the same language as I do and have
similar values, thoughts and ideas.

Some
are people who I have known for a long time like Ginger who has been a friend
to me for nearly 30 years. We could go a
long time, even years, without seeing
each other and then when we do it's like we only just saw each other the day
before. Her daughter once crawled around
my feet and drew on my shoes and grew up to be the best friend of the woman I
would marry and cherish above everything else.

Others are like Richard, Bill, and Jessie who I have known for several years
and would come to the aid of in a heartbeat because they would and have done so
for me. There are John, Matt, Jason,
Laura, among others who are my brothers and sisters in arms. They are closer to me than anyone who has any
kind of blood kinship with me and I never feel completely whole without their
company.

Then
there are some who I have met only recently or see on rare occasions like
Heather and Peter in Toronto, Robert in
West Virginia, or Grover in Georgia.
Even though I do not see these people very often or have had much chance
to know them they are still my very dear friends, at least to me and in my
mind. What I am to them is their choice
and no one can make that choice for them.

So
why are these thought and feelings running through me? Probably because at the moment I am the only
person on top of a mountain. No
vehicles, no talking, no radios, TV, or distractions. The only sounds are birds in the trees and
the wind shaking the leaves. I smell
nothing but balsam, fir, and ozone rich air from an approaching rain
storm. I have been told that I have my
head in the clouds and today that is literal.
I am standing in the middle of a water filled storm cloud that will soon
deposit its contents onto areas below me and I wonder if it will carry a little
bit of me along the way.

I
could be last person on the world right now.
But I'm not.

All
of those people that I just spoke of and many more like them are out there,
somewhere. Maybe they are thinking about
me like I am them. Only they would
know. It is enough for me to know that
they are there, they know me, and that I love them all very much. I will carry them and their spirit with me
for the rest of my life, even if I never see them again in person.

And
then there is Heather. My wife. She is also my best friend, my lover, my
nurse, my helper, and my future. She is
my world. There is nothing that I can
think of that I would not do for her and because of who she is actually asks
very little of me. I would lay down my own life with a smile if doing so saved
hers. She is the one person I have met
who I could ever say that about.

So
here I stand, a bald fat man on a bald fat mountain. The air is cool and moist, the trees smell
wonderful, and I have a world full of chosen family to come back to. At this moment the man, druid, artist,
friend, and husband in me are all at peace with each other and the rest of the
world. Maybe if more people took some
time to stand alone on a mountain and just think about what is truly important
to them then they would be happier just being a living creature walking on this
world of ours.

Well
it's time to come down from the mountain but I will always try to keep a little
of it with me to help me survive all those things down there that really don't
matter. After all we are stardust and we
are golden. Let the world take care of
its self and we can encourage those things to grow that would make our world a
truly better place.